On the Job with Julie Stewart

Stewart has managed SAS through a campus transition period.

April 3, 2012

11 a.m.: The next stop on the campus tour is Building F, which houses the campus’s training center and the largest café, where the department feeds about 700 people per day. Catering is also run out of the café in Building F.

“This building is 26 years old,” Stewart says. “We did a small renovation in 2005, but it still needs some work. The café’s menu itself is similar to Building T. We have a salad bar, two hot entrées and a deli with made-to-order sandwiches. We also have a grill in this location, which we don’t have in Building T. We don’t do a cycle menu; we prepare menus weekly. One thing we’ve found is that since the menu in our new building is so different, people who still like our traditional menus want to come back here and to Building T for those. We’re not going to change that because the customers have to feel like they can come home.”

Online ordering is available across campus so employees can order items from their offices and pick them up at their convenience. Customers also can order items such as deli meat, deli trays, pizzas and baked goods to take home. Also on view at Building F are the department’s efforts to grow its own herbs on an outside patio.

“The landscaping department plants herbs on several patios across campus that we can use,” Stewart says. “We have a farm on campus that supplies the on-campus hotel with local produce. The new building, Building C, also gets a pick of that produce. We can get what’s left over. We also are able to get local produce through our purchaser.”

Today's Top Story

More From FoodService Director

Hutchinson Middle School in Hutchinson, Minn., invited students to help serve lunch in an effort to encourage their peers to try new, healthy recipes, Hutchinson Leader reports.

The students, who are part of the school’s Students in Action Club, created posters to advertise the new meal and helped serve it to students during lunch.

The school’s kitchen manager, Janet Schmidt, said that around 37 more students than normal got in line to try the meal. The school plans to have students from the club help serve lunch once every month.

In an effort to trim costs, the country’s largest senior living company laid off 100 staff members, including regional dining services directors, reports Senior Housing News .

Not all employees who were laid off will technically leave the company, Senior Housing News notes, as some will be reassigned to alternative positions. Brookdale recently posted third-quarter earnings that fell short of analysts’ expectations and that the company’s CEO called disappointing.

At the end of last year, the Brentwood, Tenn.-based company employed 53,000 workers on a full-time basis, and...

After receiving mixed feedback from parents, Randolph County School District in Asheboro, N.C., is inviting parents to tour the district’s kitchens and cafeterias to see how the food for school meals is made, Fox 8 reports.

School officials say that the tours, part of the district’s first Food Day for Parents, will give parents an inside look at the upkeep of the facilities, as well as enable them to sample some food and see how the district is upholding USDA guidelines.

Officials also hope that the tours will provide them with more guidance on what parents and students are...

After fielding complaints from parents and students, Sodexo is launching an initiative to improve dining services at Emerson College in Boston, the Berkeley Beacon reports.

The initiative will kick off this month with an event dubbed Fresh Start, marking the start of several moves aimed at improving service—including the hiring of a new executive chef, the addition of a second sous chef, and retraining current staff on food preparation and presentation.

Members of the Emerson community will also be able to share feedback through the introduction of monthly forums, as well...

FoodService Director is the noncommercial operator's trusted source for profitability and innovation in a changing economic environment. This fast-paced, easy-to-read monthly publication delivers solutions and strategies to more than 45,000 highly targeted readers in all segments of noncommercial foodservice, including colleges, business & industry, contract management, schools, healthcare, senior living, correctional facilities and military. For the past 25 years, FoodService Director has served as the most readable and educational publication the market.